Sending text, images, and software via communications networks, particularly computer networks, is known. In one well known network protocol, the Hypertext Transport Protocol or HTTP, best known as a transport protocol for the Internet-based World Wide Web or WWW, a computer terminal or “client” connected to a network, such as the Internet, typically sends a request using software known as a “browser” to a server also connected to the network. Such requests may be for “Web pages,” documents constructed using Hypertext Markup Language or HTML and stored at the server, which are then rendered by the client browser into text and/or images. Other requests may be for software applications such as “applets” which are executed by an application engine at the client. Upon receiving a request, the server sends that which was requested to the client.
Preventing unauthorized reuse of text, images, and software provided via networks is difficult given the current state of the art. Text is usually provided in text-editable format which may be copied and reused at the client. While text may be converted to a graphic image at the server and thus provided in a non-text-editable format to the client, this is not practicable both due to the increased storage required to store text as graphic images on the server, as well as the dynamic nature of requests such as search queries where the text results are not known until the query is executed and, therefore, the text cannot be converted to a graphic ahead of time. Images may be captured at the client from the client's video buffer and reused. Software applications including applets may be decompiled and reused at a later date where a time-limited or access-limited use was originally intended.